My name is Eden. I am 17, and this is my first post.

For as long as I can remember, I looked up to my father. What he wanted to do, I wanted to do. He was a steam-fitter, I wanted to be a steam-fitter. I look just like him, with blue eyes, dirty blonde hair, freckles, and a wide smile. I was a "daddy's girl".

( for those who don't know, a steam fitter is "one that installs or repairs equipment (such as steam pipes) for heating, ventilating, or refrigerating systems"(Websters Dictionary).)

My father was into illegal medicines, let's just say that. He wasn't the nicest to my step-mother, he didn't feed me, left me home alone at the ripe age of 7. But while knowing that, I still looked up to him.

This is a story about finding myself.

In school, whenever it was time to write about what we wanted to be when we grew up, I always wrote a steam-fitter. When confronted, I said because of my dad.

I spent many years writing that same thing, until one day in 7th grade.

"Hey, what do you want to be?"

"What?"

"When you grow up, you know?"

"A steam-fitter."

My classmate took a pause.

" You don't like to work, though."

She was right. (I grew out of that sentiment). Little did she know how much impact she had on me that day. 

"Oh, okay."

Forward to 9th grade, my bedroom. Surrounded by all of the gifts my father gave me, all of my old clothes, everything. I was moving. I moved before, away from my father and to another guardian. This time felt different.Everything from my father, everything. I kept it. I thought about my classmates words, "you". Me. She thought about me and my interests, she knew me.

I realized something. I wasn't myself, I was someone else, I didn't do anything I wanted to do. I wanted validation from my father, my dad.

"Be proud of me. I want to be like you. I want to be you. Just look at me, and hold me. Love me."

For all of these years that I wanted to be like him, I just wanted him to love me. 

He said he loved me, but his actions proved otherwise. Imagine a little girl in a house with no electricity, alone, playing with her toys, waiting for someone to come home to feed her. I wanted him just to give me attention, to love me.

I threw those items in a box, untouched in my closet for years. I didn't want to think of it anymore.

I started to pursue something I loved, writing.

I began to take classes that I liked, putting in the work.  Finally...I became someone that didn't need her fathers validation to live her life.

I want to be an English Teacher now.

With love, Eden. ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚